


honky tonk women

by andromeda3116



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Cowboy Bebop AU, F/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 12:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10360893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromeda3116/pseuds/andromeda3116
Summary: For as high-tech as Jabba’s casino was, the picture they’d given her of the mark was really terrible quality.They’d told her that he had dark hair, dark eyes, stubble or a short beard, was of medium height and build, and would have “an accent” -- no specifics given on what kind of accent, thanks for the help -- but the picture was too grainy to reliably make out any features. She had been assured that he was in on the deal; he would lose all but his last chip, and then tip her that chip, which she would then pass along to Jabba, and boom: her debt was gone.Easy.[Written for rebelcaptainprompts prompt "luck". Cowboy Bebop AU.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> i saw the prompt, thought "casino au" and then every single thought was suddenly derailed by COWBOY BEBOP _COWBOY BEBOP **COWBOY BEBOP**_ and so now here we are. this is a oneshot, friends.

Lady Luck had not been on Jyn’s side in a long time -– as long as she could remember, in fact, since the last time she had actually had a stroke of good fortune, it had been surviving the Astral Gate Accident, albeit by the judicious application of cryogenics. And even that “good” luck had accrued over fifty years of medical bills, leaving her with a _literally_ unfathomable debt.

But still, she got by, more or less. Adjusted to the future –- although having practically zero memories of the past had helped that a bit -– and found herself a niche as a bounty hunter-slash-part-time criminal. It would never give her enough money to pay back the debt, but she figured that she’d be all right as long as she had enough money to continue to _outrun_ it.

Even for her notoriously awful luck, though, this was _really_ something.

She had heard the name Jabba Desilijic Tiure, had heard that he was someone to be avoided, and, looking to prevent any further disasters, had actually avoided him.

But it seemed like he had other ideas.

“They say you’re the reincarnation of Poker Alice,” Jabba’s aide translated, since Jyn didn’t speak his language and he seemed to consider himself above speaking lowly English. “Best card player in the solar system.”

Jyn shrugged. It was true, sort of –- she was a decent player, but a goddamn amazing _cheater -_ – and she was not about to clarify that with people who currently had her in handcuffs in the back room of a casino somewhere in orbit around Mars.

“We have a deal for you,” the aide went on. “You do this job for us –- very simple job,” he added, with an acidic smile, “and Master Jabba will pay off your considerable debts.”

She perked right the hell up at that, and almost asked why they wanted to use her and not one of his own men, but the aide’s smile had told her all she needed to know: plausible deniability. If she got caught, she’d hang on her own and Jabba would come out as squeaky clean as the human slimeball was capable of.

Still, to pay off a debt of nearly half a billion woolongs, she’d pretty much do anything.

“All right,” she said evenly. “What do you want me to do?”

.

Cassian would be the first to admit that he was not really suited to the bounty hunter’s life. He hadn’t taken on the job by choice, but after certain events in his past, he’d found it prudent to do something _mobile_ , and work with people who did not ask questions. Bounty hunting was the easiest job to maintain, and kept him far from the company of people who knew his name and history.

“Five thousand woolongs,” Bodhi sighed, looking at the data chip. “That’s it. We can’t even fuel up for that.”

Cassian ran a hand through his hair. “What can we do with it?” he asked, and Bodhi made a face.

“We could hit up the, uh, the nearest casino.”

“ _Bodhi_.”

“No, I’m serious,” he countered. “That Martian casino is close enough, I’m great at poker, you… should stay away from blackjack or you’ll get us arrested –- “ Cassian gave him an affronted look, which he shrugged off “ –- I figure, we could at least double this, and that’ll give us enough to put fuel in our ship and maybe a meal.”

“Are there any bounties nearby?” he sighed, and received another shrug in response.

“Maybe, but we’re running on empty and I don’t know about you, but I’d like to eat something for once.”

“We had bell peppers and beef yesterday,” he snapped.

“No, we had _bell peppers_. There was no _beef_.”

It… had been a pretty sad meal, that was true.

It had also been the last of the bell peppers, which meant that tonight’s fare was pretty much the memory of food and a longing look at the stove.

Bodhi was a great poker player, and forget what he said about Cassian and blackjack -– he _killed_ it at blackjack, the only thing he would have to do was quit before the casino workers got suspicious. He could easily make a couple thousand before catching anyone’s eye. They could double, or possibly triple, that five thousand woolongs, and eat tonight.

The casino Bodhi had mentioned wasn’t owned by or associated with the Syndicate, or at least it hadn’t been when he’d been involved, and so it was… _probably_ safe, even if it was orbiting Mars and a magnet for organized crime. Besides, he was a dead man; nobody was looking.

It was safer than going hungry or limping to hyperspace with a teaspoon of fuel.

“Fine,” he conceded, grudgingly. “Let’s go play.”

.

For as high-tech as Jabba’s casino was, the picture they’d given her of the mark was really terrible quality.

They’d told her that he had dark hair, dark eyes, stubble or a short beard, was of medium height and build, and would have “an accent” –- no specifics given on what kind of accent, _thanks for the help_  -– but the picture was too grainy to reliably make out any features. She had been assured that he was in on the deal; he would lose all but his last chip, and then tip her that chip, which she would then pass along to Jabba, and boom: her debt was gone.

Easy.

Jyn was… _reasonably_ certain that he had just sat down at her table. She glanced down at the picture, and it definitely looked like the same guy, if she was looking at him through a dusty window.

“Mind if I join the game?” he asked, and sure enough, he had an accent -– her vague memory said Hispanic, but the present said Martian. Bingo. She dealt him in with a smile.

He watched her carefully through several rounds, in which she made sure he neither won nor lost too much to be anything but chance; he barely spoke, and never looked away from the table even as he amassed a respectable collection of chips.

“What a shame,” he murmured, as she pulled about half of his chips across the table. “Seems like Lady Luck isn’t on my side tonight.”

He was looking at her like he could see right through her; but so what? He knew the game they were playing, his part to play -– or at least, Jabba had said he would. He knew he was supposed to lose, and her job was to make sure he did. It was just… he put her on the defensive with the way he was watching her, eyes on her face rather than her hands as she shuffled. He looked at her like she was an open book that he was very interested in reading, and it unsettled her.

“The last hand,” she said mildly, dealing two cards each to the remaining players, and two for herself. She’d been playing it safe, so dealing herself a blackjack wouldn’t be unbelievable; she made sure that he would bust with the first hit.

“Hmm,” he muttered, looking at the twenty-three he’d gotten.

“Dealer makes twenty-one,” she said, with a flourish, and everyone but him groaned and pushed chips around.

“Looks like I’m down to my last chip,” he said, and she smiled, bowed, held out a hand, but –- “I think I’ll keep it as a souvenir.”

What?

 _Oh, you have got to be joking_. He wasn’t in on it after all? Or he wasn’t the right guy? Or maybe he was drunk and had forgotten?

She forced a smile to stay in place as she ducked away from the table and tracked him down. He seemed to have dropped something and was just standing back up.

“Hey,” she hissed, catching him by the arm, and he turned, eyebrow raised. “You’re supposed to give me that last chip!”

He tilted his head. “You’re awfully brash,” he replied evenly, and loudly. “After you cheated the entire game, and I didn’t say a word?”

People around them started muttering about _did you hear that, no wonder I’m broke!_ and the casino’s guards were walking up; this whole job had gone downhill really, _really_ suddenly.

“Just give me the damn chip,” she snapped, and he held it up for a moment, then made it disappear into his sleeve, looking behind her to the guards. She glanced around and met their eyes.

Jabba was expecting her to turn up with the chip in the next five minutes –- they were coming to take her to him, she was sure of it -– and she somehow doubted that he would buy _the guy didn’t give it to me_ as an excuse. Maybe if she brought him in with her, proved to them that it was just a mistake, she’d had the wrong guy… but he had already melted into the crowd.

“Wait!” she cried, running after him, but he had pulled one hell of a disappearing act.

_Time to go._

She pressed a concealed button on her bracelet and said the keyword –- “Showtime” -– to initiate autopilot on her Red Tail. It would hone in on the signal from the bracelet and come right to her.

It might break some things in the process, but at this point, she was so deep in this crap that it didn’t much matter.

.

Cassian fingered the poker chip thoughtfully; it was heavier than the one he’d had before running into that guy –- a guy who, he couldn’t help but notice, looked passably like himself, probably explaining the cheating dealer’s strange antics. She had some deal worked out to get this chip, but had mistaken him for that guy. What it meant to him was, this chip was probably worth some money.

Maybe he had _finally_ had a stroke of good luck.

And then the dealer showed up again, but running full tilt past him -– in heels and a form-fitting uniform, he had to admit that he was a little impressed –- as the glass windows covering one wall shattered and a small, one-man ship burst through.

He glanced behind him, spotted the guards, and cursed internally.

“Bodhi, we have to go!” he snapped into his comm. Bodhi couldn’t possibly be far.

“Are you kidding me?” his partner replied, but growled. “I’ll meet you at the elevators.”

“Meet me at the ship in the lobby, actually,” he said, following the dealer. It would be the single fastest way to get out of here, and if he’d been caught on-camera at the blackjack table, and recognized… It wasn’t incredibly likely, but Cassian had learned a long time ago that assuming the worst and acting accordingly, particularly when it came to evading the Syndicate, usually paid off.

“What ship –- _what?_ I haven’t cashed in my chips!”

“Leave them!”

Bodhi ran almost directly into him in the lobby; they’d be able to hitch a ride, she was just getting into her ship, and they were right on her heels.

“What’s going on?” Bodhi asked desperately, but Cassian ignored him and shoved him into the little ship, following right behind him just before the door closed. The dealer looked around, horrified.

“What the hell are you doing?” she shrieked, and he glanced through the viewport, the guards pulling out their guns.

“Hitching a ride out of here,” he answered. “You gonna fly, or is cheating at blackjack all you know?”

She glared at him, then cursed under her breath and took off.

“Where can I get rid of you?” she snapped, as soon as they were out of the casino, leaving an impressive array of broken windows and upended landscaping behind them. It wasn’t exactly the smoothest escape he’d ever been involved in, but it would work in a pinch, and if he’d been caught on camera and the Syndicate did recognize him, the dealer would be their first target, and they might even assume that he was associated with Jabba now. It would buy him time, if nothing else.

“Our ship is docked at the north hangar,” he replied. “What’s on the chip?”

She didn’t answer, but she did take them to the north hangar and land within their own airlock, which he closed and locked behind him as soon as they were off. If he wanted to fence this thing, he’d need to know what it was, and to whom it was worth money, and she was the only link he had to either answer.

“Hey!” she yelled, eyes blazing with anger, and stormed out of her little zipcraft. “Let me out of here!”

“What’s on the chip?” he repeated.

“What is going on?” Bodhi moaned.

“Can you take us out of here?” he asked Bodhi, who made a face.

“Yeah, but it’s the last takeoff we can manage with the fuel we’ve got.”

So, basically: wherever they landed, they had to fuel up, or they were grounded. As long as it wasn’t Mars, he wasn’t going to care.

“What do you even care about that stupid chip?” the dealer snarled, following them as they made their way to the cockpit. “You don’t even have it!”

“I don’t?” he said evenly, holding it up and weighing it in his hand. “It’s awfully heavy for a poker chip.”

She stopped dead in her tracks, mouth falling open. “You had it the whole time?” she asked, hands clenching into fists. “Why didn’t you give it to me like you were supposed to?”

“I haven’t had it the whole time,” he admitted, hiding it again in a concealed pocket of his jacket. “Found it on a man who looked a lot like me, though.”

She growled and took a deep breath. “Look, just give it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I need it, that’s why.”

“Why?” 

“Because I have a deal with Jabba,” she articulated through clenched teeth, and he shook his head.

“I don’t know any Jabba,” he lied. “What’s so important about it?”

“I don’t know!” she snapped, holding up her hands in frustration. “I just know that he wants it, and if I give it to him, all my debts go away. So just give me the damn chip!”

“How much are those debts?” he countered, and she glared.

“None of your business.”

“Let me rephrase,” he amended. “How much is this thing worth?”

She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, before giving him an acidic smile. “More than four hundred million woolongs, apparently,” she snarled, and he almost fell over.

Holy _shit_. Even in his wildest dreams, he hadn’t expected this thing to be worth _that_ much.

(Also, how the hell had she rung up a debt of that size? He made a mental note to hunt down her information.)

He didn’t show his surprise, and instead whistled softly. “So, at least half a billion. You hear that, Bodhi?”

The question was rhetorical; Bodhi was gaping at the dealer.

“We just got rich,” Bodhi breathed.

“No, you didn’t,” the dealer snapped back. “You can’t fence it. It’s worth that much to Jabba, and I don’t know who he’s planning to sell it to.”

“So help us find out,” he said quickly, and she narrowed her eyes. “We’ll cut you in on the profit, you get a third of whatever it gets us.”

She seemed to think it over for a moment, before nodding slowly, eyes calculating. “Okay,” she said, holding out her hand to shake. “We have a deal.”

 _Yeah_ , he thought, even as he took her hand. _She’s lying_.

.

He told her his name was Joreth, which she tentatively decided was a lie, because she felt like he trusted her roughly as much as she trusted him, which was somewhere between “not at all” and “active sabotage”.

But still, she agreed to act as a go-between for him and Jabba, because it was in her best interest to get that chip into Jabba’s hands, and although she could not give less of a damn whether or not the two guys got paid, she cared significantly more about getting her own debts forgiven than getting revenge on them for manipulating her.

“Ah,” Jabba’s aide said, when she contacted him from the ship’s living area, “Jyn. We were beginning to worry.”

“I don’t buy that,” she replied, deadpan. “Look, I’m on a fishing boat, still in Martian orbit. We have the chip, if we can arrange a trade.”

“We?”

“Long story,” she sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose to stave off a headache. “How much are you willing to pay for it?”

“That wasn’t the deal.”

“I’m changing the deal,” she countered coldly. “Instead of Jabba paying my debts,” she explained, even though the words tasted like bile –- not-Joreth was standing on the other side of the camera, watching –- “he pays cold, hard cash.”

 _Alternatively_ , she tried to say with her eyes, _you could just kill them and we could go back to our old deal._

The aide looked aside, and she heard Jabba say something, before he looked back at her with a thin smile. “Ah, but, you see, Master Jabba never promised to _pay_ your debts, simply to make them go away.”

In other words, they were not about to hand over four hundred million woolongs. It probably had been too much to hope for.

“So,” he went on calmly, “no matter how much you settle with us for, you’ll be taking a loss.”

“How about we discuss this in person?”

“Oh, no,” the aide countered. “You’ve already decided to change the deal. So, we’ll offer you… thirty million woolongs.”

With every fiber of her being, she loathed not-Joreth and his partner for screwing this all up for her. She forced herself to smile.

“Fifty,” she countered.

“Thirty,” he repeated, and she glanced up at not-Joreth, who shrugged.

“Fine,” she snapped. “Thirty million woolongs.”

“Excellent,” the aide said. “We’ll see you at the flight deck of the casino at 2100 hours.”

With that, he cut the feed, and not-Joreth walked around her, again toying with the poker chip. She wanted to throttle him.

“I could have had my debt paid off if you had just -– “

“What’s on the chip?” he cut her off, and she let out a scream of frustration.

“ _I don’t know!_ ” she snarled, but his expression didn’t flicker.

“Let’s find out,” he said, shrugging, and opened up a panel in the wall, pulling out some kind of device. Bodhi walked in from the cockpit and sat on the couch opposite her as he set it up on the table.

“What have we got?” Bodhi asked, and not-Joreth pursed his lips.

“Thirty million if we trade with Jabba,” he replied, setting the poker chip on the stage of the device. “But I doubt he’ll give us the best price.”

“Thirty million?” Bodhi repeated, but then shrugged. “We’d still be better off.”

Jyn was vibrating with suppressed anger, and there was no way that not-Joreth couldn’t see it. “ _I’m_ not better off,” she snarled. “You two are the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I doubt that,” not-Joreth replied mildly. “You were in the Astral Gate accident,” he went on, and she started.

“How do you know that?” she asked, and he didn’t look up.

“I have ways of gathering information,” he answered. Jyn narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been out of cryo for four years, and on the run from your medical bills for three. I doubt we even rank in the top five worst things that have ever happened to you.”

She scowled. “Yeah, thanks for reminding me that I have the worst luck in the solar system,” she snapped, crossing her arms. “I should have killed you and taken the chip for myself.”

He let out a short laugh. “I would love to see you try to kill me,” he said, but didn’t elaborate, looking intently at the screen. In spite of herself, she was curious. He was an enigma, and an attractive one, even if he _was_ an asshole.

“So, what is it?” she asked.

“It’s a chip,” he said, and before she could say _yes thank you for stating the obvious, jackass_ , he went on. “CryptBreaker.”

“What?” Bodhi asked, and he glanced at him.

“It’s a master decryption program,” he answered. “ISSP has been looking for it for years.”

“How much do you think they’d be willing to pay for it?” Jyn asked, and he raised an eyebrow, looking to Bodhi and shrugging. Bodhi looked uncertain.

“I don’t know, I’d have to ask some of my old… colleagues,” he said, wincing.

“More than thirty million?” not-Joreth suggested, and Bodhi made a face.

“Doubt it,” he replied. “You know ISSP, they’d want us to hand it over to be good citizens.”

“I bet the Syndicate would pay good money for it,” Jyn offered, and not-Joreth’s expression turned to ice.

“We are not contacting the Syndicate.”

“Why not?” she countered, raising her chin defiantly and making a mental note of his reaction. “They’re close, and they’ll pay up for a master decryption program. If they find out Jabba’s offering thirty million, they’ll offer us more.”

“ _No_ ,” he snapped, and her eyes narrowed. Yeah, _definitely_ bad blood between him and the Syndicate.

She wasn’t sure how it would become useful, but she was sure that it _could_ be.

“Fine,” she sighed, crossing her arms and leaning back into the chair. “Jabba it is.”

.

“You know, she’s probably right about the Syndicate,” Bodhi muttered. “They’d pay at least double what Jabba’s offering.”

Cassian shook his head, watching her tinker with her ship -– he wasn’t fool enough to leave her alone with a comm and the knowledge that he, someone she had reason to want to hurt, had history with Mars’s largest criminal organization. “Not to me, they won’t,” he said, and Bodhi glanced at him.

“What’s your history with them?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “I stay away from them, that’s all that matters.”

She _was_ right, that was true. Draven would pay a lot of hard money for that chip… if anyone except Cassian offered it. But if they found out that Cassian was alive, after all this time, he’d never, ever get free of them again, if they didn’t just kill him outright.

There’d be no payoff, and he’d lose the freedom he’d had to fake his own death to achieve. Not even worth contemplating.

“It’s almost time,” he said, turning on his heel and making for his own ship. “I’m going down to the flight deck, the two of you wait here.” To Bodhi, under his breath: “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Jyn replied sarcastically, and he rolled his eyes as he walked away.

Within ten minutes, he was suited up and landing his ship on the flight deck of the casino; Jabba’s aide was already there, waiting with a briefcase. He stepped out, the magnetic shoes of the space suit keeping him on the surface in the microgravity.

“Thirty million woolongs,” the aide said, holding up the case, and Cassian held up the chip to show him. “On three.”

At the count of three, he threw the chip and the aide threw the case… and then pulled out a gun. By the time he fired, Cassian had already pushed off the flight deck and grabbed a turbine, and managed to pull himself forward in time to catch the chip and knock the aide’s gun away, and then the aide himself off the flight deck.

He was just about to go for the briefcase -– win-win, as far as he was concerned, and all it had cost was sending one of Jabba Desilijic Tiure’s aides into deep space –- when he was almost knocked off his feet by the force of another spaceship landing.

Jyn’s zipcraft. He looked up and met her eyes through the viewport.

She gave him a blinding smile, and used her craft’s claw to pluck the briefcase off the flight deck and pull it up into the ship, then waved merrily at him and flew off.

It had all happened in less than a minute.

Cassian bit his tongue.

To be honest, this was _much_ more in line with how his luck usually went. He should have known that it was too good to be true.

.

“Well,” Cassian said, placing a bandage over Bodhi’s forehead where Jyn had clocked him with a wrench to get him out of her way, “we can still give it to the ISSP. Maybe they’ll give us enough money to fuel up.”

“ _I am never taking you to a casino again_ ,” Bodhi grumbled.


End file.
